Germany’s Schalke 04 has become the latest top European football club to go into partnership with Viagogo, embracing a business that other sports argue is pricing fans out of stadiums.
Once the preserve of shady figures in side streets, the sale of spare tickets for big sports matches has moved on to the internet with the development of sites like Viagogo.
While a growing number of soccer clubs are happy to work with the websites and tap an additional source of revenue, the rulers of English rugby and cricket argue that online sales inflate the price of tickets beyond the reach of many core fans.
Ed Parkinson, head of marketing at Viagogo, stated “We’re removing all of that murkiness and insecurity. The deal with Schalke for example is club endorsed, people know the ticket will be genuine and it’s simple to use”.
Viagogonow has agreements with 10 soccer clubs in Germany’s Bundesliga, 10 in the English Premier League including champions Manchester City and Chelsea, and a further 10 across Europe.
The sale of these tickets online at above face value has angered many fans and that backlash was a factor in the abrupt termination in December 2012of Viagogo’s partnership with Bundesliga club Hamburg SV.

Come on Football fans, let’s get together and stop Viagogofrom preventing real fans from being able to buy tickets to games.

Thank you all for supporting my aim to spread the word about the LEGALIZED TOUTS VIAGOGO!. It is a new year and we need to continue to push to make the cause more mainstream, show Viagogo that we will not be silenced.

Thanks to all of you that continue to read this blog, follow @ihateviagogo and tweet. This year we should continue to tell stories about unsatisfactory services from Viagogo, spreading the word on forums and on Twitter.

Tell your friends, family and colleagues. 2013 will be the year viagogo are exposed and can no longer deceive and rip off consumers

Music website Gigwise last week announced it was extending its partnership with secondary ticketing firm Viagogo for a third year, which will see the tickets website be the sole ticketing partner of Gigwise.com.

Viagogo’s Ed Parkinson said “Gigwise is a first port of call for music fans, who are passionate about seeing their favourite artists perform live. We are proud to be extending our partnership and continuing to offer their readers the best access to tickets for the concerts they love”.

Bad move Gigwise, why would you want to be associated in anyway with Viagogo!

According to Action Fraud, the number of people complaining about online ticket fraud has increased. In 2010, Action Fraud received more than 600 complaints, that number has jumped to 3,000 this year. This article states “this increase is mainly down to one dodgy website” (hmmmmm……….I wonder if it is Viagogo. Music industry executives told Newsbeat they are worried fans will continue to be ripped off. Now I obviously have no proof they are talking about Viagogo but I wouldn’t be surprised if findings show they were involved.

Stop Viagogo ripping off innocent consumers…………..support and spread the world I HATE VIAGOGO

The BBC reports The Football Supporters’ Federation has said it will complain to the Premier League about deals signed by clubs allowing their fans to re-sell match tickets for a profit.

Ten clubs have formed partnerships with company Viagogo. These clubs defend the system as a safe and legal way in which season ticket holders are recompensed for matches they cannot attend.

The chairman of the Football Supporters’ Federation (FSF), Malcolm Clarke, says “We think it cannot be right that Viagogo are allowed to do something through the internet which, if a fan did outside the ground for exactly the same price, would be a criminal offence and which could lead to a football banning order.”

Viagogo says its service means that fans no longer have to take that risk, and describes its mission as being “to bring efficiency and transparency to what has traditionally been a murky market place”.
It is great that people are realising that Viagogo id not the best partnership to have.

Rugby Football Union defeats Viagogo in the supreme court over ownership of ticketing rights, policy and pricing

Viagogo will now have to hand over to the Rugby Football Union (RFU) the names and addresses of people who sold on tickets to England rugby matches via its website.

The Supreme Court in London dismissed an appeal by Viagogo against an order forcing it to reveal the names of people who had used its website to sell on tickets for autumn internationals in 2010 and Six Nations games in 2011.

to us. Viagogo can no longer hide. All we want is transparency in online secondary ticket selling and this is one step closer.

On the 5th December a think tank for the music industry will come together to address concerns over re-selling of concert tickets at a summit in London. The summit will discuss issues raised by the Dispatches investigation aired earlier this year and also legislation issues. This is great news! Don’t get me wrong, I think that fans should be able to sell unwanted tickets to other fans, so we should not stop secondary ticket websites. What needs to happen is tighter regulation for companies like Viagogo, who buy tickets in bulk and sell them to fans at inflated prices therefore preventing us (fans) from buying/affording tickets. I will keep you updated on the outcomes of the summit on this website and @ihateviagogo. For more information on the summit and speakers see here.

In early 2011, viagogo sold personalized tickets for the band Take That’s 2011 tour to German customers. A number of people were not able to enter the concerts in Hamburg and Munich. A German court banned Viagogo from claiming that the validity of the Take That tickets is “100 % guaranteed”.

In 2011, a legal battle began between the Rugby Football Union (RFU) and viagogo over tickets for which the RFU had explicitly forbidden resale for profit. Viagogo lost the initial trial and an appeal in the lower courts in December 2011, resulting in the issuing of a Norwich Pharmacal Order. Viagogo appealed to the Supreme Court to prevent the release confidential customer information.

In February 2012, viagogo featured in Channel Four’s Dispatches programme entitled “The Great Ticket Scandal”. The programme claimed that allocations of tickets from the primary ticket seller and tickets purchased by staff members were being resold at inflated prices. Viagogo responded to the programme’s claims through an interview with the BBC.

Labour MP Sharon Hodgson’s proposal that legislation be introduced to cap resell prices at face value +10% was rejected by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport.

Viagogo can not keep doing this to fans of music and sports. People need to know that they are being scammed. Spread the word using #ihateviagogo

Last year, This Is Money posted a Q&A featuring Viagogo. Have a look at what they said and what the actual truth is.

Q: Who are your sellers?
A: The overwhelming majority of sellers on Viagogo are ordinary sports and music fans who are trying to sell on tickets that they can no longer use.

Truth: The overwhelming majority of buyers on Viagogo are ordinary sports and music fans who are trying to buy tickets from other fans that can no longer go to the event.

Q. What percentage of sellers are fans reselling tickets because they cannot attend an event?
95% of people who sold on Viagogo in the past year, sold fewer than 10 tickets. The overwhelming majority of users on Viagogo are genuine sports and music fans selling less than 10 tickets a year. On the site, the average mark up across the majority of tickets listed on the site is around 10% -to 15%.

Around 50% of tickets sold on Viagogo sold at or below the ticket face value. Examples of great deals on the site at the moment include; McFly – you can go and see the boy band from just £15, half the face value price Peter Kay – you can see Peter Kay at the O2 from as little as £24 – face value is between £35 and £42

Truth: This 95% does not reflect the high number of tickets being sold by a small number of sellers. The remaining 5% of sellers are responsible for a disproportionately high number of tickets sold on the site.

Q. Why when there is a big ticket event do reselling tickets appear on your site within an hour of the event going onsale?
If you take festivals for example, a number of big festivals release tickets for the following year almost immediately after the festival has finished. In addition, ‘early bird tickets’ are also released up to 8 months before the festival takes place. During this time, people’s plans change such as booking a holiday, a wedding commitment and Viagogo provides a platform for consumers to resell tickets they can no longer use. What we have found is that the number of tickets listed on the site increases as the event draws closer.

Truth:Viagogo staff used company credit cards to buy a large number of tickets from primary sellers, and then resold them on Viagogo. Viagogo staff also worked directly with external ‘brokers’ who post tickets for sale on Viagogo. This was done through the sales team who maintain a constant contact with these external sellers to maximise profits.

Q. What commission do you make from reselling tickets? / Q. How much do you charge the seller? / How much do you charge the buyer?
Viagogo charges 15% to the buyer and 10% to the seller. This is standard across all events. In addition to our buyer fee we also charge for delivery. The cost of delivery varies depending on the location of the buyer and the seller. For example we charge more for international shipments.

These fees cover the cost for managing the guaranteed delivery of tickets from the seller to the buyer and will cover the cost of maintaining the website, providing customer service to both the buyer and seller, overseeing the delivery of tickets from the seller to the buyer and managing the payment processes on both sides.

Truth: Viagogo charges both ticket sellers and buyers fees. Its ticket buying fees are not listed on the site until customers go to purchase tickets. Example fees for a pair of George Michael tickets on sale at £149.99 each for the Albert Hall in October are a booking fee of £45, shipping of £11.95, plus VAT of £11.39, delivering total fees and VAT of £68.34. Seller fees are listed as 10% plus VAT on that, this would deliver a selling service fee and VAT of £36. Face value for similar George Michael tickets for this date and seats was £50.75 to £72.75.